CHAPTER 144: CHAPTER 144; WILL HE MAKE IT?

His gaze lingered on the trash can holding the tiny shredded pieces of her medical reports, his expression sharpening into something lethal. ’Those who touched you... those who broke you... I will grind them into dust, just as they did to you. They will pay it dearly.’ he had already forgotten that he had crippled those two humans beyond cure.

The monitors hummed on, steady, and oblivious. Yueyao slept on, unaware of the storm gathering in the man who refused to let her go. She was here, gkw could he let her go lime that?

Hours stretched into the depths of the night, and the bedside lamp dimmed to a soft glow. Though her body had stabilized, Yueyao did not wake up or even move. Her face remained pale, lashes trembling only when a nightmare flickered beneath her closed lids.

By the second night, her condition was unchanged. Fang Lin visited briefly, holding Yueqin close at the threshold, but Jin Shuren’s shadow at the bedside allowed no lingering. They didn’t have any business sticking around.

On the third day, her chest still rose and fell in shallow rhythm, her skin warmer, and her pulse steady, yet her mind remained locked away, as though her spirit hovered on the edge of two worlds, one filled with chains and terror, the other with something darker, fiercer, waiting to be born.

Neither world offered her any comfort!

Jin Shuren had not left her side even once.... He hadn’t had much going on around him apart from accompanying her and had neglected absolutely everything else.

When the doctors dared suggest that she might not wake up and needed to be admitted to the hospital for further checkups, his eyes turned towards them, so sharp that they could cut their words short. "She will wake," he said flatly, his voice a verdict.

Yueyao was already in such a state that he wouldn’t take her to the hospital! What if she blamed him?

And so, Yueyao slept on, three days and nights suspended between fragility and rebirth.

— — — — —

On the other hand, Shen Xiao and Bai Zhi fared no better, their conditions wavered on the edge of life and death.

By the third day, once the doctors deemed them stable, they were transferred out of the intensive care unit, though they remained unconscious.

Master Shen and Madam Shen haven’t moved an inch from the hospital.

"My son.... My son... Will he make it?" She sat at the bedside, caressing that pale face lying on the hospital bed while her husband stood there closely comforting her.

These three past days have been so hectic, and on the other bed, Bai Zhi lay there, her entire damaged face bandaged, her face was totally destroyed, and it was pustulating a lot.

The door slid open with a soft hiss, and the routine bustle of the ward checkups followed.

Two nurses walked in first, pushing a stainless-steel trolley, followed by the attending physician.

The faint clink of glass vials and the rustle of sterile gloves filled the heavy silence that had only heartbeats and monitors vibrating as it seemed life was slipping away.

"We will do the vitals check-ups," one nurse announced briskly as Madam Shen and Master Shen took a step backwards.

She wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Shen Xiao’s arm, pressing the stethoscope to his skin. "BP 92 over 58... pulse 78, slightly irregular." She scribbled the numbers down before reaching for the thermometer, slipping it under his arm and after a few minutes, they had the result, "His body temperature is at 37.8°C. Mild fever persists."

Another nurse adjusted the IV drip, replacing the nearly empty saline with a fresh 0.9% sodium chloride bag, and then hung a second infusion: broad-spectrum antibiotics flowing clear and steady through the tube, "Ampicillin infusion started," she murmured, checking the rate.

Madam Shen winced at the word antibiotics, as though it confirmed her worst fears. She tightened her hold on her husband’s arm.

Across the room, Bai Zhi’s bedside became a flurry of movement. A nurse gently peeled back the soiled bandages from her face, the sickly scent of pus and disinfectant mixing in the air. Her ruined features, swollen and unrecognizable, glistened under the harsh white light.

Her wounds need to be cleaned thoroughly every day, routinely to remove the rotten flesh..." the doctor instructed. He examined the tissue with clinical detachment. "Administer Vancomycin IV, high dose. Infection control is critical. Add 500 mL Ringer’s lactate for fluid balance."

A nurse flushed the line with heparin, then hung the new infusion. Bai Zhi’s monitors beeped faintly, oxygen saturation steady but low.

Master Shen, standing like a stone pillar behind his wife, finally spoke, his voice cracking despite his effort to remain calm, "Doctor... be honest. My son, will he ever wake?"

The physician’s hand paused on Shen Xiao’s chart. For a long moment, the only sound was the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor. "So far, we have stabilized him, and that’s the best we could do!" he said finally, voice measured. "But whether he regains consciousness... depends not on us, but on his will. His body fights, but the outcome is uncertain."

The words hung in the sterile air, heavier than the machines keeping them alive.

Madam Shen broke down in sobs as she moved closer to the hospital bed, clutching her son’s cold hand as though her warmth could anchor him back to life. Master Shen tightened his grip on her shoulder, his own eyes bloodshot but refusing to shed a tear.

The medical team finished their routine, checking vitals, adjusting drips, recording notes, and filed quietly out, leaving behind only the hum of machines and the faint hiss of oxygen.

Two broken bodies lay side by side, suspended between this world and the next, while the Shens kept their silent vigil.

In that sterile room, time no longer moved forward. It only waited, along with them, for the moment Shen Xiao’s eyes might open... or never would.